Bryan Fuller Talks Hannibal: Season 3, Introducing the Red Dragon Storyline and More

It’s been a long, thirteen-month wait, but Hannibal is back this week. The brilliant, beautiful, and bloody series has some big changes in store, in the wake of the shocking events that closed out Season 2, which Hannibal executive producer and showrunner, Bryan Fuller, jokingly calls “the Red Dinner.”

With Season 3 here, I spoke to Fuller about what to expect this year, as we follow Hannibal (Mads Mikkelsen) and Bedelia (Gillian Anderson) to Italy and gradually begin to learn just who survived the mayhem Dr. Lecter left in his wake back in Virginia. Fuller and I also chat about the latter half of the season, as the famous Red Dragon storyline begins, with Richard Armitage (The Hobbit) playing the “Tooth Fairy” killer, Francis Dolarhyde, and discuss the current plans beyond Season 3 and the ongoing question of whether Clarice Starling can ever be introduced, given that character’s film and TV rights (along with anyone else introduced in Silence of the Lamb) are currently held by MGM and not Hannibal’s producers.

IGN: As Season 3 begins, the show is set overseas and the locations are completely different. You’ve had these ideas for a long time but was it exciting to so dramatically shift the visual landscape of your show in a way that most series wouldn’t do three seasons in?

Fuller: Absolutely. This was kind of the season that the first two seasons earned, in that we could go into a purely character-driven story format. We only filmed five days in Florence and everything else we found in Toronto and built in Toronto. It was fascinating to shift the story so dramatically. I was getting so sick of those FBI sets. I was like, ‘Enough with the concrete brutalism! Let’s get to Italy.’ [Laughs] It was just a shot in the arm to do something completely different and take the show from a crime procedural and fully immerse it into this romantic horror genre that was perhaps a little Hammer and perhaps a little more soap operatic and thoughtful than what we were doing when we were using the crime procedural as a backbone to how we were telling stories. Really it was also an opportunity for Hannibal to be honest and direct about who he is for the first time. There was a certain amount of opacity in the first two seasons that slowly became clearer and clearer at the end of the second season. Now, everybody’s cards are on the table and that allows us to have a greater honesty for character interactions moving forward.

Hannibal: Season 3 Photos

Hannibal: Season 3 Photos

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Hannibal: Season 3 Photos

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Hannibal: Season 3 Photos

Hannibal: Season 3 Photos

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IGN: Now, here’s something you’ve dealt with for a year now - the "who survived?" question. As we get closer to the premiere, we see that Will, Jack and Alana are still listed as series regulars. And we’ve seen some clips and some of the actors talking about the season but that doesn’t necessarily mean one thing or another. What can you say about those characters and what we should presume about their state of being going into this season?

Fuller: The fun is just because you see a character doesn’t mean the character is alive. In the scope of our series and the way we tell stories, there’s a certain fun in subverting those expectations in a really creative way but there’s also the opportunity to reimagine and redefine everybody that was at that house at the end of Season 2 and their invitations to the “Red Dinner” and to be able to change everyone up considerably. That was really exciting because those who did survive that night have to be changed from what they experienced and what was revealed to them. That was a great opportunity in the writers room to really be able to advance characters because of their trauma in a way that we wouldn't necessarily have the motivation to. So… am I answering the question? [Laughs]

IGN: [Laughs] You’re answering it without answering it which is a good skill to have. Let me ask about Bedelia a bit more because she’s been a great presence on the show that’s filtered in and out. Now we’re going to see much more of her and Gillian is a series regular this year. What’s it like bouncing her off Hannibal and what can you say about her motivations since there is so many questions about what would bring her to accompany him at this point?

Fuller: Well, we do get into the Bedelia and Hannibal backstory this season. We get glimpses of it in the first episode and we really revisit it in episode ten and we really understand just how linked Bedelia is to Hannibal Lecter and the secrets he keeps for her and the secrets she’s kept for him and how those efforts to keep confidential with each other have kind of blown up in their faces. Bedelia for me is Hannibal’s psychiatrist first and foremost. That will always be her role and the intimacy that they share outside of a patient/doctor relationship isn’t one that hinges on love. It’s one that hinges on adult co-conspirators. There is an almost James Bond, spies, undercover quality to the arc in the first seven episodes that gives Bedelia and Hannibal a greater sense of danger in their relationship and yet a greater sense of intimacy. They’re two people that are going to take care of themselves first and foremost and essentially they do.

Continue to Page 2 as Fuller talks about Will Graham’s potential fate, the Red Dragon storyline and the potential for Clarice Starling on the series.